Poker is a card game in which a group of players are dealt one or more playing cards (sometimes referred to as “hole cards”) to form a hand of cards. In some embodiments, the players may replace one or more of the dealt cards with newly dealt cards and/or with cards that are shared between the players (sometimes referred to as “community cards”). The players may place bets on the outcome of the game, and the bets are collected in a pot. The player or players with the highest ranked hand (or in some cases, the lowest ranked hand) wins the pot, or the pot may be split between the players with the lowest ranked hand and the highest ranked hand.
Online poker is a form of poker in which the game is provided over a network by one or more computers. The various components of the poker game, such as the table, the playing cards, the dealer, etc. are represented virtually by the computers. In addition, the players typically are represented virtually within the game by one or more avatars or icons, for example.
Some online poker players desire to play multiple online poker games at once (sometimes referred to as “multitabling”). The players typically will play on a plurality of tables provided by an online poker operator or website. In this manner, the players hope to increase the amount of money they may win over a period of time. However, many online poker operators or websites either do not allow players to multitable, or are not optimized for multitabling. Accordingly, the players desiring to multitable may experience inefficiencies in the multitable implementation and/or may not be able to play on the number or type of tables desired.
In addition, online poker websites may experience large fluctuations in the amount of players visiting the site. For example, some websites experience player fluctuations of up to 1000% between peak periods and non-peak periods. Such fluctuations may strain the computing resources required to provide the poker games to the players. Accordingly, at least some websites or online poker operators may be required to procure computing resources that are sufficient to meet an expected peak demand for the poker games. However, if the demand for the poker games drops (e.g., fewer players request to play games on the website), the computing resources may be underutilized leading to unnecessary expenditures to maintain the underutilized resources.